When HTC introduced the new Desire HD and Desire Z last week in the UK, one of the most overlooked features was the new Fast Boot mode that enables people to quickly make a call or check emails by shortening the time taken to complete the power-up sequence.

Android fans normally wait a minute or two for their device to fully boot up, but HTC’s Fast Boot allows devices to load in about three seconds.

At first I thought this new feature was thanks to the second-generation Snapdragon being used, but apparently it was all software. Hackers have ported the new Sense UI ROM from Desire HD to the older Droid Incredible and were able to bring Fast Boot along for the ride.

My friend Kellen from Droid-life flashed the ROM on his Incredible to show Fast Boot in action and it’s pretty amazing this was achieved on an older device. Apparently it doesn’t power the phone completely off, but it places it to some kind of sleep mode which allows the quick boot up times.

Hopefully we will see HTC roll this feature out to more Android phones with future software updates.

The ROM is still pretty buggy, but if you want to give it a shot then hit up the source link for the download.

Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

@Aaron and Frank – douche bags…don’t be mad that your incredible is not one of the top phones anymore, its still a great phone. “Older” is a relative term, meaning that it is older relative to the phones they are comparing it to here, the desire Z and HD.

See, the silence from HTC about this makes me think that the Incredible isn’t going to get the new Sense UI. Which is bullpucky.

I get that technology moves fast, but what I don’t get is denying software updates (not counting root in this) for phones that can obviously support the update. It’s not like the iOS 4 on a iPhone 3G crapfest–a really poor decision on Apple’s part. Sure people would be mad they weren’t getting the update, but they were even more pissed when it made their phone nearly unusable and no way of going back. The Incredible can obviously run it; what reason is there from keeping it off of it other than trying to sell more phones? This is where the analogy to computers breaks down. It would be one thing if I bought my phone at full retail price. It’s quite another to be locked into a contract and a new phone coming out on a different carrier.

I also imagine Verizon is going to want to make sure to slap their boot animation on there, thus ruining the Fast Boot.

The Droid Incredible is far from an old device, unless your device is running out of memory and space for new OS versions like the g1 you’re fucking fine and dandy. You can be as competitive as you want about Android Hardware but until the market shapes up, the apps and games, it doesn’t really matter cause all you’re honestly doing is toggling through stock apps and cruddy apps.

I can’t understand all this hype about the boot up time. Essentially, HTC is cheating by putting the phone in an (albeit deep) sleep mode instead of shutting it down completely. But how often do you reboot your phone? Once every week?

Every time I reboot my Desire, I do it either to change the battery or flash a new ROM. Removing the battery kills the sleep mode, so no benefit there. And the phone can’t enter the recovery mode from the sleep mode, so to flash a ROM I’ll first have to yank out the battery.

Can you please redo the test and first remove the battery for a while.
So that we can see how fast it boots after being really off.
I wonder, since a couple of guys suggested that this mode would be no real power off mode.

@Aaron and Frank – douche bags…don’t be mad that your incredible is not one of the top phones anymore, its still a great phone. “Older” is a relative term, meaning that it is older relative to the phones they are comparing it to here, the desire Z and HD.

See, the silence from HTC about this makes me think that the Incredible isn’t going to get the new Sense UI. Which is bullpucky.

I get that technology moves fast, but what I don’t get is denying software updates (not counting root in this) for phones that can obviously support the update. It’s not like the iOS 4 on a iPhone 3G crapfest–a really poor decision on Apple’s part. Sure people would be mad they weren’t getting the update, but they were even more pissed when it made their phone nearly unusable and no way of going back. The Incredible can obviously run it; what reason is there from keeping it off of it other than trying to sell more phones? This is where the analogy to computers breaks down. It would be one thing if I bought my phone at full retail price. It’s quite another to be locked into a contract and a new phone coming out on a different carrier.

I also imagine Verizon is going to want to make sure to slap their boot animation on there, thus ruining the Fast Boot.

The Droid Incredible is far from an old device, unless your device is running out of memory and space for new OS versions like the g1 you’re fucking fine and dandy. You can be as competitive as you want about Android Hardware but until the market shapes up, the apps and games, it doesn’t really matter cause all you’re honestly doing is toggling through stock apps and cruddy apps.

I can’t understand all this hype about the boot up time. Essentially, HTC is cheating by putting the phone in an (albeit deep) sleep mode instead of shutting it down completely. But how often do you reboot your phone? Once every week?

Every time I reboot my Desire, I do it either to change the battery or flash a new ROM. Removing the battery kills the sleep mode, so no benefit there. And the phone can’t enter the recovery mode from the sleep mode, so to flash a ROM I’ll first have to yank out the battery.

Can you please redo the test and first remove the battery for a while.
So that we can see how fast it boots after being really off.
I wonder, since a couple of guys suggested that this mode would be no real power off mode.